Jamie wandered into the kitchen to find Nat stirring something in a big pot on the stove. Jamie had to take but a single whiff to know what was cooking. “Mmmm…spaghetti and meatballs. My favorite!”

“With my positively irresistible tomato sauce,” Nat said with her cocky smile. “Guaranteed to make any Italian or Italian devotee positively swoon.”

“Awesome! You know I can never resist your tomato sauce. It’s always got that lovely zing to it.”

As she opened a tiny bottle and gave a few good squirts over the pot, Nat said, “I’ll let you in on a secret, James. It’s the Tabasco sauce that gives it that zing.” Reaching for a little jar of dry spice, she added, “But it’s the oregano that makes the whole thing turn out just right.”

Jamie had to swallow hard before she could say, “I don’t see how Julia Child herself could best you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment!”

“Can I help with anything?”

“An extra set of hands for the salad would be ideal. And no, I don’t mean that literally.”

Some fresh vegetables and a small plastic board were already waiting on the kitchen island, so Jamie dug out a big knife and got busy slicing and dicing. One notable trait of her salads was that she kept the skins on most of the vegetables; both she and Nat were fervent believers in letting nothing of any nutritional value go to waste. They didn’t even stop at the cores when eating apples, and they always saved the peels from bananas and citrus fruits. Their mutual motto was, “Why lose it when you can use it?”

While Jamie chopped and Nat stirred and seasoned, Nat asked at length, “So, how did it go?”

“How did what go?” Jamie asked without looking up from her work.

“With him.”

“Him?”

“Chris Kirkpatrick, you dolt! Did you talk to him or not?”

“Yes, and no.”

That made Nat stop and turn her head. “What do you mean, yes and no?”

“Got his voicemail and nothing else,” said Jamie, trying not to sound as disappointed as she felt while she cut a carrot in half.

After a short pause, Nat said, a little more kindly, “Well, at least you know you dialed the right number. Did you leave him a message?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing much. Just told him who I was and asked him to call me back at his convenience. That’s it.”

“Well, I suppose you could have done worse. So now all you have to do is wait for him to call you.”

“Yeah,” said Jamie, and it was all she could do not to add, ”Fat chance of that ever happening.”

Nat gave her wooden spoon a few sound raps against the side of the pot before saying, “Be patient with him, sweetie. He’s a busy boy, and true, the odds of him noticing you amid all the other girls who drool over him may not appear too promising.”

Now Jamie did look up. “Are you implying that I drool over him?”

Nat shrugged. “Hey, I’m just saying. No need to take offense, honey.”

Jamie merely pursed her lips and went back to slicing carrots.

As Nat lowered a metal spoon into the sauce for a taste test, she continued, “On the other hand, my dear, you may be in for the surprise of a lifetime.” She tasted the sauce carefully, gave her lips a few light smacks, waited another second, and declared at last, “Mmmm-hmm. Perfect!”

“I’ll kill myself, and if you don’t care, everyone’s gonna know about it and they’ll blame you! You understand? My death will be your fault! All—your—damn—fault!”

“Wowsers,” Lance said as the fivesome sat in a circle, staring at Chris’s phone like it was possessed. “If I hadn’t heard it, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“I heard it and I still don’t believe it,” said Joey.

“Holy smokes, this girl is good,” Justin whispered faintly, his eyes set to pop.

“Guess it’s true what they say—there’s more than one way to win a war,” JC said grimly.

Chris added every bit as grimly, “And this girl is going straight for the kill.” The word “kill” left a rancid taste in his mouth.

“You really think she’d do it?” Justin asked.

JC ran both hands through his lengthy brown hair as he answered, “Anything’s possible, Justin. Maybe she does want Chris back that badly, or else this could be her perverted idea of revenge. One way or the other, she’s placed Chris in an impossible position. I don’t know whether to be more impressed or more nauseated.”

Chris shook his head and distractedly brushed his own fingers through his hair, which was still damp from the pool. “Well, guys, what should we do about this? What do you suggest, JC?”

“Hmm.” JC took a minute to consider his answer, with his eyes on the kitchen table and with one hand massaging his chin. At last he said, “Well, one thing is certain, Chris. You can’t allow this girl to manipulate you this way. You should never yield to threats, no matter what they are.”

“I know that. I’m not letting her push me around that easily.” Chris wrapped his arms around himself, feeling as though someone had locked him in a freezer. “But she still scares me with this call. I mean, I don’t hate her to this extent.”

JC nodded. “And that’s another given. This kind of talk should never be ignored or taken lightly. You couldn’t have a more logical reason to be concerned, buddy.”

Chris bowed his head to his chest. “I told her I’d rather eat dog crap, or scratch out my eyes, than come anywhere near her or even look at her again—and yet I can’t bear the thought of her body lying somewhere, with a knife in her hand or a bullet through her brain. I could hardly live knowing she’d thrown her life away on my account.”

Now JC reached over to grab Chris’s shoulder, squeezing so hard that Chris winced. “It’s not your fault, Chris.” JC spoke quietly, but the vehemence in his voice made the others recoil. “Do you hear me? No matter what she does, to herself or to anyone, it will never be your fault.”

“I know that, too,” Chris said, able to look JC dead in the eye while he said it. “Even so…”

“Even so,” Joey echoed.

JC’s face softened and his grip on Chris’s shoulder eased a little, though he still kept his hand there.

At length, Justin asked, “Should we call the police?”

“Not yet,” JC said. “No one else should know about this for the time being. We can’t let on to Allie that we know. Likely enough, that’s what she’d want us to do—spring headfirst into action.”

Chris said, “And I sure don’t want to go dropping in on her, trying to see what she’s up to.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Joey with eyes to rival the size of saucers, “ba-a-a-ad idea!”

“I agree wholeheartedly, Joey,” said JC. “That’d only add a shipload of fuel to the fire. Not only would that send Allie the wrong message, but that would also make a complete fool out of Chris.”

“Boy-howdy, you can say that again,” Chris muttered.

“So what do we do?” asked Lance.

“Nothing, for right now,” said JC as he let Chris go. “We’ll wait a bit and do our business as usual, but keep our ears open at the same time. If Allie keeps calling, we’ll know she hasn’t gone through with her plot. If she keeps making death threats, if she starts showing evidence…” He trailed off for a brief moment before resuming. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Chris understood this was the most sane, sensible thing to do. But that didn’t make him feel any better. Drawing an abstract design on the table with his fingertip, he said softly, “I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe her.”

“Neither can I,” said Lance with a hand cradling his forehead. “That girl’s got such nerve.”

“I take back what I said earlier,” said Justin. “This makes the girl as fine a piece of work as they come.”

Joey couldn’t help asking, “Even if we know Chris won’t be responsible if Allie…did it, do you think other people, our own fans, will believe otherwise?”

JC gave a heavy sigh and put his hand over his eyes. “I hate to say it, Joe, but I think it’s safe to assume that a lot of people, including our fans, really would take Allie’s side. This would make for a blazing scandal.”

“As if I weren’t already famous for the wrong reasons,” said Chris, feeling his heart sink to his shoes.

“Not to sound sexist,” said Lance, “but the women tend to get the most sympathy in these situations. Boys have always been known for giving girls grief. Girls have always been known as the martyrs, and some girls have gotten pretty good at playing the martyr.”

“Maybe that was one of the points Michael Jackson was trying to make with ‘Billie Jean,’” said Joey. “The girl goes after the guy and creates a scene, and yet everyone takes her side. She hurts him first, and people keep warning him, ‘Don’t go around breaking young girls’ hearts.’” He ended that last sentence in high-pitched, slightly off-key singing.

Justin said nothing to this, but Chris had never seen his face look so sad before.

JC slowly withdrew his hand and opened his eyes as he murmured, “Goes to show that women are every bit as capable of cruelty, aggression, and deception as men. When you get down to it, anyone is capable of anything.”

“When I first met Allie,” said Chris, still making random doodles on the table, “I’d never have suspected her capable of something like this in a million years. Even before that disastrous dinner, such a thought never once crossed my mind. Guess it goes to show what I know of her…which is to say I don’t know her at all.”